Stephen wrote:

> And the food! Made these isles the laughing
> stock of the culinary world. 

In the European version of heaven, the cooks are French, the police are 
British, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian, and it's all 
organized by the Swiss.

In the European version of hell, the cooks are British, the police are 
German, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and it's all 
organized by the Italians.

Regards,
John

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Somebody sent me a text message that ended with "this message is not 
> available in arabic, [...] or any other **** immigrant tongue!"
> 
> I just found it interesting that "immigrant" is basically a Latin word, 
> brought to us from Italy when the Romans invaded Britan. And "tongue" is 
> from an old German language, from when they invided Britan.
> 
> In fact, you know what? Basically "our" entire language was created by 
> these hated "immigrants". So next time you curse them, just remember 
> that the words you're using to do it with are words THEY INVENTED!
> 
> Irony, much?
> 

The U.S. is much, much worse about this, considering how we colonized 
this continent. Heck, we're building a wall, even!

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4810592a@news.povray.org...
>  You claim that a person's history consists of his ancestors' history
> besides his own life. I disagree. Why should it have any effect on your
> actions what your ancestors did or didn't do? Why should your own
> ancestors' actions have more effect on yours than the actions of someone
> else's ancestors?

Everybody is born with some inheritance in the practical form of economic 
capital and in the figurative form of social and cultural capital (*). This 
capital can be positive (wealth, good networks, education) or negative 
(poverty, bad networks, illiteracy) and affects directly your history, 
present and future. So while your history does technically start when you're 
born, it is shaped (positively or negatively) but what came before, and so 
are your actions, like it or not.

It's possible to unclaim some of the assets you were born with (**), but 
most of the time you have to live with them (***) and act accordingly.

G.

(*) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_capital
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_capital

(**) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_%28sociology%29

(***) http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf
and lolcats http://elusis.livejournal.com/1744514.html (only if you read the 
above)

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Gilles Tran <gil### [at] agroparistechfr> wrote:
> (***) http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf

  Maybe it's a cultural thing (ie. I don't live in the US), but I didn't
understand what she is talking about.

  Maybe it isn't, but it just *sounds* like heavy multiculturalist
propaganda (ie. white westerners are all racists, even without knowing).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Somebody sent me a text message that ended with "this message is not
> available in arabic, [...] or any other **** immigrant tongue!"
> 
> I just found it interesting that "immigrant" is basically a Latin word,
> brought to us from Italy when the Romans invaded Britan. And "tongue" is
> from an old German language, from when they invided Britan.
> 
> In fact, you know what? Basically "our" entire language was created by
> these hated "immigrants". So next time you curse them, just remember
> that the words you're using to do it with are words THEY INVENTED!
> 
> Irony, much?
> 
Of course, being descended from Polish Jews and Dutch Tea Planters on
one side of my family and wild Scottish Highlanders on the other, having
been married twice to non-English wives and atm having a Slovakian gf
and finally, teaching twice a week at the Migrants Resource Centre, I,
of course, could have no possible interest in this thread ;-)
Unfortunately, fighting prejudice with facts doesn't work. The average
bigot is not interested in listening to arguments that might destroy his
"comfort zone".
I wish I knew the answer.

John

-- 
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.

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Gilles Tran <gil### [at] agroparistechfr> wrote:
> The problem being that in countries where such debates are common, this is 
> not just the average opinion of people but part of the political platform 
> for the extreme or no so extreme conservative/right-wing parties

  No members of other parties have this kind of attitude?

> that 
> eventually shape actual policies: taking all the credit for the good things 
> and "Who, me?" denial for the unsavory stuff

  The credit may be unjustified, but is denial of the negative things wrong?
From a purely logical point of view it's true: Modern people are *not*
responsible of what their ancestors did 200 years ago. Thus how can it be
wrong to deny any responsibility?

  Sure, it may be hypocritical to take credit for the good things, but
that's not really my point.

> The denial can go even further: in France, the ruling 
> conservative party just tried to push the idea that colonization was a jolly 
> good thing after all, too bad the uppity natives didn't like it so we had to 
> kill thousands of them.

  There are two sides to every coin. Claiming that eg. African colonization
did not bring *any* good to Africa would be simply false.

  I think Zimbabwe is a good example of this. Have negative things happened
in Zimbabwe because of colonization? Sure. However, have *good* things
happened there because of colonization? I think that the answer can be
seen indirectly when the expelled all the white farmers.

  Exactly like white power activists only see the positive side of things
and deny the negative things, multiculturalists do the exact opposite: They
only want to see the negative things and ignore the positive ones.

> You can somehow see that in sport supporters. When their team wins it's 
> "their" win and "their" victory - even though they're just a bunch of couch 
> potatoes - but when it looses it's everybody else's fault but theirs.

  But "right extremists" and "white power activists" are not the only
ones who do this. Selective view of history is common to all political
orientations.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Doctor John <doc### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> fighting prejudice with facts doesn't work.

  Especially if those facts are irrelevant from the point of view of
the modern world and modern political situation.

  IMO "your ancestors were immigrants too" is *not* an effective and
logical way to fight racism and prejudice. It's irrelevant.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   IMO "your ancestors were immigrants too" is *not* an effective and
> logical way to fight racism and prejudice. It's irrelevant.
> 

Selective, aren't we? I think that working for free at
http://www.migrantsresourcecentre.org.uk might have some relevance in
this discussion

John
-- 
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.

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48108cd2@news.povray.org...
> Gilles Tran <gil### [at] agroparistechfr> wrote:
>> (***) http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf
>
>  Maybe it's a cultural thing (ie. I don't live in the US), but I didn't
> understand what she is talking about.

Now that's surprising :D
The damn knapsack is *** invisible *** for those who wear it. That's the 
whole point of the essay.

She's just saying that people who are born with a certain set of privileges 
have a hard time understanding that they have it in the first place (that's 
the social and cultural capital). It's invisible to them, they were born 
with it, so they can pretend (rightfully) that it doesn't exist.
However, people who don't have it not only can see it all right but are 
reminded every minute of the loss.

>  Maybe it isn't, but it just *sounds* like heavy multiculturalist
> propaganda (ie. white westerners are all racists, even without knowing).

The text was written with regard to the particular white/black US situation 
in the 80s but you can transpose it anywhere with local modifications (i.e. 
Kurds in Turkey etc.) and replace "race" by whatever gradient of 
socio-economic status is available where you live.

G.

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Doctor John <doc### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Selective, aren't we? I think that working for free at
> http://www.migrantsresourcecentre.org.uk might have some relevance in
> this discussion

  I think that there are basically three different points of view about
the same thing.

  Let me present two hypothetical situations:

1) "I lost my job and my home burned to ashes and I have nowhere to live.
Could you please let me stay at your home until I can get a job and a
new house? I'll try to pay half of your rent as soon as I can."

2) "Your house is much more expensive than mine. You have the duty to
share it with me, and while we are at it, you have the duty to feed me
because your salary is much larger than mine."

  Neonazis and white power racists want to see *all* immigrants as being
of the second type: They just want to come here and live at our expense,
and that we don't have any responsibility nor duty to do that.

  Multiculturalists want to see *all* immigrants as being of the first
type: All immigrants are honest and hard-working people who are forced
to leave their home countries because of atrocities, and who move to
richer countries out of necessity and in order to make a living with
honest work.

  Then there are those who dare to claim that actually *both* types of
immigrants exist, and who dare to claim that the first type of immigrants
are beneficial while the second type are detrimental. What is worse, they
actually look at trends (eg. unemployment and crime rates) to see where
the first and second types of immigrants are mostly coming from, and they
claim that the country of origin can often make a difference.

  Of course multiculturalists just classify this as racism, and equate
them with the neonazis and white power activists. Of course the racists
also take the negative things they are saying and use these things for
their own racist agendas. It's a lose-lose situation.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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